


If the Sky Could Crack

by MadamBackslash



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Gen, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamBackslash/pseuds/MadamBackslash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets a moment to himself after the Battle of Midtown</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the Sky Could Crack

The first time Clint saw the ocean he was fifteen or sixteen and the circus had fetched up in some two-horse town on the Gulf Coast.

He was transfixed.

In his first spare minute he'd changed into board shorts and run down to the water. The sting of the salt on his bare skin had felt like redemption. Like forgiveness. He'd felt something come loose in his chest and the ache of it brought him to tears. He stayed in the water until the sun was low and Anton came down to the beach to fetch him, clapping a huge hand on his sunburned shoulder and laughing at an archer having the sea-longing like an Elf.

He hadn't thought about that day in years. Hadn't known that kind of peace again for a long, long time. For all Anton's friendly jibes about his apparent Elvish heritage, Clint felt... closer to himself, was the best way he could think of it, near the ocean.

The ocean took his pain and his grief and let it drift away with the tide. It never judged, never measured his heart and found it wanting. It knew who he was, and gave him peace anyway. 

From his viewpoint at the top of Stark Tower, on the edge of the little balcony where the machine built to open the portal had been assembled (it was gone now, taken apart, boxed up and sent to SHIELD), Clint could see the ocean. New York thought of itself as big, but next to the limitless sea it was tiny. Insignificant. 

Even through the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon, the air was hot and heavy with moisture. Clint watched the storm front approach and allowed himself to remember the thunderstorms of his childhood -- one of the few things he loved about that time. 

He remembers long, hot summer days in Iowa watching the thunderheads roll in across the prairie. Everyone would get snappy and irritable as the charge built, and when the storm finally broke Barney would hide under his bed and Clint would run outside laughing and raising his arms to the sky, and not come in until he was drenched to the skin and shaking. 

Clint could feel the change in the air as the storm grew closer. He knew this was the calm before the storm, both for the city and for his head. Sooner or later someone would find him and drag him down for tests and more tests and even more tests and Nick Fury alone -- if him -- knew when (no, there will be no "if") he would be cleared for field duty. Tasha had said he needed to level out, and he knew it would be a while till he felt this good again. Good enough not to borrow trouble.

Good enough to think instead of Sadie, his favourite circus horse, an even-tempered, broad-backed grey mare -- the first horse he'd ridden, first horse he'd stood on the back of, first horse he'd fired an arrow from the back of; the one he trusted most in the ring. The one he'd lie down on when there was free time in the afternoon, his head on her rump and feet either braced right behind her withers or hanging down one shoulder or the other while he read or napped. She didn't mind, just cropped grass or stood in the shade of a tree or a caravan. They'd been good friends, him and Sadie. 

He was feeling good enough for the phrase "level out" to remind him of learning to fly quinjets, which he still regarded as the bastard offspring of a plane and a helicopter, and which were the devil his-very-self to make hover. Level was hard, but it got easier with time. He'd never actually crashed a quinjet until today.

Today he'd seen the sky crack open and an alien army fall out. He'd seen a god call down the lightning out of that same sky. He'd seen a man in a flying exoskeleton throw a nuke through a wormhole and live. He'd seen a huge green monster catch someone and bring him safely back to earth. He'd see level again. Maybe not today (and he can already feel the calm leaving him, the "bag of cats" in his head clawing him back). Maybe not tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but he would see it. 

When he did, he was going somewhere with horses and the ocean, and he wasn't going to come back until he was damn well ready.

Lightning hit the Chrysler Building next door, and there was an almost theatrical crack-BOOM of thunder. The storm broke and the rain poured down, suddenly and heavily, as bright flashes lit up the sky around him. Clint Barton raised his arms to the sky and laughed and laughed. And if some of the water running down his cheeks was salty, well. He'd always had an affinity with the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from the U2 song [Electrical Storm](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0adFYuNuns), which has been one of my favourites for a very long time. The whole line is "If the sky could crack/there must be some way back," which made me think of Natasha's comment to Clint that he needed to "level out" after being under Loki's mind control. 
> 
> The story then decided it needed to take a similar form to the song, but that wasn't originally my intention. Stories have their own opinions about such things, and I, as the mere bearer of thumbs, can do nothing but comply with their demands.
> 
> This work is dedicated to those who are dealing with mental illness in their own lives or that of someone they love. There is a way back to level.


End file.
